Adventure is out there.

Good morning guys,

I had a pretty good day yesterday. Kaetlyn brought me out to our reserve, “the Little Serengeti,” to go over the camera trap route that she has been using. We switched memory sticks and batteries on most of the camera. We will take the memory sticks back to the office and analyze the photos, categorizing photos by species and making special note if we see any carnivores or black rhinos so we can track their numbers and movements on the reserve. The Reserve is my happy place, it’s where I feel most at peace and every time I am out there I see something that inspires me to fall in love with this place all over again. Yesterday, we saw a beautiful longneck with just the sweetest face! Also many troops of baboons and one had some females with tiny babies holding on to their bellies as they walked around.

See the baby holding onto her belly?

Kaetlyn also gave me a lesson on driving a standard truck from the wrong side (at least to an American) of the vehicle and on the wrong side of the road. I haven’t driven a manual since I was 16 so it was all kinds of new lessons for me, plus the Mahindra does not like to go into or stay in 1^st gear and doesn’t have 3^rd gear whatsoever so that just added to the … fun? Hehe, but the good news is I didn’t stall! I had a few rough shifts, but kept it going. Almost all the vehicles around here are standards, so I best get to practicing – and I much rather practice in the reserve than in town! Kaetlyn is either extremely nice or I truly didn’t do that bad of a job, but she said I am a natural and should pick it back up rather quickly.

She may be a turd-nugget, but the Mahindra is such a picturesque safari truck.

We got back to the office mid-afternoon and that brings me to the Walking Dead. Have you watched it before? You know when the walkers know that there is a human on the other side of a doorway and they just pile right over top of each other to push through the door with only eating on their mind? The thought of a potential meal is the only thing that drives them and they will push through tiny holes, other walkers, ANYTHING just to get their food source? And the way they just surround the living reaching out to them with their hands and clambering all over them? Have you ever stood in a pen of bottle raised baby goats holding a bottle of milk before? Yep. It’s the Walking Dead: Goat Edition. One of my tasks at CCF is to oversee the model farm since I grew up on a small livestock farm and have lots of experience breeding and raising sheep and goats. Currently it’s kidding season and we have tons of bottle diary kids and few bottle Boer goat kids that we rejected by maiden mothers. Three times a day I risk my life (well maybe just my knuckles – those little teeth hurt) to bottle feed 20+ (it increases daily) kids and giggle to myself and sometimes the Namibian farmhand that is assisting me, even though none of them have any clue what I am talking about, because I am reminded of the Walking Dead. Just the thought of these little fluffy, floppy eared, things as blood crazy zombies cracks me up.

So it’s almost time to start work and my little Walker Goats are probably starving to death (at least in their minds), so I best get off here and go tend to them. I hope that you have a good day!

Then again, pretty much every day is a good day. I do not think I have ever been this happy before.

Today is kinda my day off. Technically, I am off on Fridays all day and a half day off on Saturday mornings, but I have a deadline on some papers that I need to edit so I am “kinda” off today as I am editing papers from my front porch. I did get to sleep in a bit, eat some eggs that I hard-boiled in my electric tea kettle (who knew you could do this? I have Katrin to thank for that!) and go on a lovely morning run. I am also planning a nice hike to Leopard Hill to watch the sunset this evening since Nick spent so long clearing out a nice sundowner spot up there, and then maybe cook dinner over the fire with Sam.

Have I told you how much I love this place yet?

I learned a new skill in the laboratory yesterday as I have been put in charge of supervising two new interns (Josef and Samli) on preparing and analyzing (Look, Nick: analyZing not analysing) hair found in scat samples to be able to determine carnivores’ diets. I am very detailed oriented so I find this kind of work to be rather addicting and next thing I know a few hours have passed by. Plus it’s great to be able to participate in some good research as well, there is so much fascinating work that comes out of CCF. Oh that reminds me I am going to throw in a shameless plug for Carnivore Tracker which is Louisa’s baby and is a Citizen Science App.  http://cheetah.org/2015/08/introducing-carnivore-tracker-a-ccf-app/ It’s a really cool way to get the general public involved in carnivore  monitoring and data gathering. Seriously, go check it out.

Anyways, I just wanted to pop in and say “hi,” still no luck on getting my phone fixed or getting a new phone yet. I do plan on taking my Canon camera to Leopard Hill tonight so hopefully I will get some nice photographs loaded for you soon!

Hi there. How did your day go?

I had a pretty crazy adventure last night with a kudu behind my house which made last night end up not being the quiet, early night I had hoped for. Today started very early too soooo my evening workout consisted of a resistant band shoulder routine and laying on my front porch reading a book, but hey at least I got somewhat of a workout in, right? I have also started tracking my daily macros, so we’ll see where that takes me. It’s very hard to figure out proper fitness and nutrition here when all of our meals are served cafeteria style and consist of about 80% carbs for each meal. I am very thankful for my FitCRUNCH Baked Protein bars and oodles of packets of Performix Pro Whey + protein that I brought with me. I’d be lost for breakfast without them and throughout the day too! Protein isn’t the easiest to get on the meal schedule when pasta is so much cheaper in bulk quantities.

Annnnd back to my day. Paige, our Livestock Guard Dog Programme manager, had an appointment in town so I got to be in charge of the dogs today. The dog routine starts out with early meds at 0700 then you prepare diets and feed everyone, weigh the puppies (they’re about 3 weeks old now), clean and check the sutures of the older puppies who recently were spayed and neutered (all looked good), clean all the dog pens, and then of course the most critical part – give each dog lots of love while checking over them (my favorite part). I spent a good while hanging out with Nesbit and Lady who are allllll the way on the other side of the center in the Silver Pens until the new dog pens get finished. Nesbit is a big lover and a bit of a slobbery mess that insists on giving you an extra bath every 5 seconds. Lady is much quieter, but will let you know when you’ve neglected to continue to pet her by placing her paw on your leg. I love them both. After all the food, meds, poop, kisses, and snuggles I went over to the kaarals to help the farm team with bottle feeding the goat kids and did some raking of the kaaral pens too.

Lunch time then back to the office to get some computer work done before the afternoon dog routine starts back up which is essentially the same as the morning just minus the puppy weighing and we walk the dogs in the afternoons too. I walked Bolt, the 15 week old breeder male puppy. He got a little lesson in manors and a quick intro to the sit when we stop concept of heeling, but he did really really well on a leash – Paige has done well with him. Annnddd that was pretty much my work day today. Nothing too crazy, but I love spending time with the dogs and the livestock so it was a good day.

Now I am sitting at my picnic table on my front porch, writing this and waiting on dinner time. I just saw a little mongoose too not too far from my porch a few minutes ago. Tarik offered to take my phone into Windhoek and see if he can find a repair shop to get it fixed for me since he was going there for a conference this week anyways. So cross your fingers that I will have a working phone by Friday and can get some photos added into these things for you so you have something to look other than just my ramblings.

Food time! Tootles!